West Ham head coach Julen Lopetegui was not a happy man following the Hammers’ pre-season loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers. And it wasn’t just the embarrassment of losing to his former club that seemed to irk the new Hammers’ boss.
Make no mistake about it, a man as proud as Lopetegui will not like losing to Gary O’Neil, the man who succeeded him as Wolves’ gaffer. But he’d have been far more concerned about how lacking in quality his West Ham team were when measured against Premier League opposition rather than their first two easier pre-season opponents.
In his post-match interview, Lopetegui seemed to have grasped exactly why West Ham were one of the worst teams defensively in Europe last season, and it’s a problem that will clearly require more than just the signing of £40m Max Kilman to fix.
West Ham are in desperate need of players and need them now. The recent failures in transfer negotiations for a number of players are no longer important. The Hammers will need to start getting transfer deals done and may have to pay over the going rate to ensure it happens.
Breaking reports of a deal for Aaron Wan-Bissaka being close will go some way to appeasing Lopetegui but expect an additional central defender to remain a priority.